Losing Toby
by violetmaid
Summary: **Sequel to Losing Laura** Toby has gone. He's not dead but nobody knows where he is. Julia is determined to find him and God help you if you stand in her way. But what is alink really and who is the mysterious Liam who knows so much about their past?
1. Chapter 1

**_Authors note whatsit: Here we go guys, the first chapter of Losing Toby...Are you excited? I know I am! Haha, not really. Okay same rules, there are no rules! Keep commenting and that is an order (not, only comment if you guys want to)... but please do comment and stuff. If I muck up a character tell me please..as I have not yet read Deadlock I'm kinda disregarding almost everything that happens in it...also I can't really write Franz and Nigel so their in Hawaii or something. So yeah, here we go...GEROMINO!_**

Otto woke up to Wing shaking his shoulder.

"Are you okay Otto?" Wings worried face stared at him, "You were shouting in your dream."

Slowly the dream began to come back to Otto, and he realised that it wasn't a dream. It had actually happened. Otto stared at his friend trying to process what he just saw but only one thing was clear and looking at his friend he jumped out of bed and started to throw some clothes on, all the while yelling at H. I. V. E. mind let them out and wake Nero.

"Otto," Wing said looking a little worried, "Are you okay?"

Otto stared at him and said as he sprinted out the cell in the direction of Nero's office "Get the girls, somethings has happened to Toby and Julia is on her way here now."

Then the alarms started. They ran into the two girls about halfway to the office, no, I mean they ran into them...

"What's going on?" Laura asked, she looked panicked.

Otto gestured for Wing to explain as he was trying to catch his breath.

"Otto had a dream and he thinks that Julia is coming to H.I.V.E." Wing explained as they continued towards Nero's office. The girls stared at Otto as though he had grown a second head.

"You had a dream, thought Julia was coming here and set off the alarms waking us up?" Shelby said, sounding very annoyed.

"Well, no the alarm was H.I.V.E..mind, I asked him to keep everyone in their rooms..." Otto replied, by this time they had reached Nero's office where Raven was waiting, glaring at them.

"I thought you had something to do withy this." She said, "Explain."

"It would be easier if Nero was here as well." Otto mumbled. Raven stalked through the door and into the office gesturing them to follow her. Nero was sitting at his desk, looking very annoyed.

"Mr Malpense, would you like to explain what just happened?" he asked.

"It was a dream but it wasn't really a dream, I mean it was happening or it's happened." Otto explained getting confused.

"Maybe you should tell us this dream then?" Nero asked. Otto nodded and began.

**20 minutes ago:Singapore Base(Toby's place)**

Julia Mercer knew something was wrong before she landed, she knew something was wrong more than a country away. She couldn't explain it, well she could but it had to many big words for her liking. The second her foot made contact with the ground outside of the base, Toby's house she corrected herself mentally, she became terrified. Not something that happened often to her. She couldn't feel the link between her and Toby, it was there but it was blocked.

She walked into the small house carefully, it was a mess. Chairs were overturned, vases were broke. the t.v. was gone. It was a very carefully staged robbery, she should know she had done hundreds of them in her life. With increasing terror she walked over to where the trap door was. It had been wrenched open. She was trembling as she climbed down the ladder to the floor beneath. The floor covered in blood. She also knew, the same way she knew that something was wrong, that almost none of it was Toby's.

"That's how you do it." she muttered leaning over a mans body, "Why couldn't you have done this when I was showing you how to do it?"

With rapidly climbing dread she made her way throughout the rooms. She knew Toby wasn't dead but she had to check. Sunlight glinted off something under a table, leaning down she picked it up. It was a knife, not just any knife. Her first knife. She slowly sunk to the ground and began to cry.

Suddenly she felt someone else, looking up she saw a ghost image of Otto Malpense. She stood up supporting herself against the wall and glared at him.

"Tell Raven that I am coming to H.I.V.E, Toby," her voice caught, "Toby's disappeared and get out of my head!" This last part she screamed, then for just a few seconds she let him feel what she was feeling. The despair of losing your link, it would be too much for anyone to handle. But Julia Mercer wasn't just anyone and Toby wasn't dead. She looked up at the sky, it was nearly dawn.

"I will find you," she said, "and they will pay."

Then Otto woke up to Wing shaking his shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors note thingymawhatsit: Hey awesome-people-who-have-reviewed and not-as-awesome-but-still-pretty-awesome-people who haven't. What have you all being up to lately? I have been dragged around a shopping centre to buy clothes I'll never wear...and avoiding doing school work. But good news is tomorrow is our last day of school! For two weeks then we go back again for another 10 weeks, isn't our life amazing? Then when we leave school we get to go to another school and then go to work. How exciting is that?**

"Mr Malpense," Nero said, "I am finding this hard to believe. You say you had a dream and somehow was transported to this base place?"

Otto moved his feet, "Guys, remember when I almost died," Everyone nodded and Laura winced, "And I said it felt like I was being stored in the back of someones mind? Well, I think I was in Julia's mind and somehow we have a psychic connection." Before anyone could interrupt him Otto continued, "There was something I didn't tell you though, wherever I was, it had a computer. The most powerful computer I've ever seen." Otto's face looked like he had found heaven.

"Wait," Nero said, "you think there is others who have computers in their heads?"

Otto nodded eagerly, "I've felt it before, just walking past someone on the street and feeling like we had this connection or something. Only this time it was stronger and I felt again, when I had the dream."

Laura was about to say something when a guard burst into the office. He was breathing heavily and looked as if he had run a marathon.

"There's a...There's a," He sputtered, "there's an unidentified shroud coming straight for us at a, well a very fast speed."

Nero paused, he looked as if he couldn't decide what to do. He looked at Otto.

"She knows we didn't do it," Otto said hurriedly, "if she did she wouldn't have told me she was coming here, right Raven?" He turned to the asassin, looking for confirmation.

Raven nodded slowly, "I believe Malpense is correct. I do not think Julia would have told him if she thought we were responsible."

Nero nodded, "I hope the two of you are right," He looked at the guard, "Let it land and please escort her here."

The guard nodded and hurried off.

**10 Minutes Later:**

Julia looked like she usually did, emotionless, by the time she had entered the office, minus the guard. Automatically she took in her surroundings, identified everyone in the room and rated their risk factor to her if something happened. She also found three possible ways of escape.

The guard came running into the office, he glanced nervously at Nero.

"Sorry sir, I did try to follow her." He said quickly, "But she umm, dissapeared?"

Nero sighed and waved for the guard to leave. He stared at Julia, a questioning look on his face.

Julia shrugged, "I memorised the blueprints for H.I.V.E years ago. I doubt even you know all of the passageways around here."

Nero looked shocked, they must have used 40 different companys to build H.I.V.E, how could she have found them all? She nodded in greeting at the other people in the room, Nero's office, she guessed correctly.

"You must be Nero," Julia extended a hand to him. Nero shook it a little tentatively. "Otto, Wing, Laura, Shelby, Raven."

There was an awkward silence for a few minutes. It was broken by the door opening. Dimitri walked through and pointed at Otto.

"Will you plese tell H.I.V.E mind that I am not planning on leaving and giving up H.I.V.E's location to anybody? I only just persauded him to let me out of ou, my room" he corrected himself. Ever since the council had vited to let them all go he had been living at H.I.V.E and had become the self-defence teacher for most of the school. Noticing Julia he turned to her with a slighty shocked expression, "And you, what are you doing here?"

"Toby's gone," Julia replied, her voice sounded like it was about to crack.

"So, I wasn't dreaming then?" Otto asked.

Julia shook her head and sighed, "I told him it was a bad idea."

"What was?" Laura butted in.

She sighed, "Storing Otto so his body could heal at an advanced rate, what else?"

Everyone looked confused and Julia rolled her eyes.

"When I stored Otto in my head it created a link between us," she explained.

Everybody just looked even more confused.

"What's a link?" Nero asked.

Julia muttered something under her breath in russian and both Raven and Dimitri had to cover smiles. Then she bagan to explain what a link was.


	3. Chapter 3

**Awesome Author's Note: Guess what... I'm an admin! For those of you that have no clue about what I'm talking about it basically means that I can now post really cool pictures and stuff on a Facebook page that is viewed by people who like the same things as me! How awesome is that? Who said flattery got you nowhere? Sadly it's not a H.I.V.E. page but it's a page! Anyways now that I've bored you who wants to meet some of Julia's and Toby's roommates growing up? This is now dedicated to the awesome AlphaFive who has reviewed! Go AlphaFive! Hope I found a correct translator for the russian though...**

Julia Mercer was getting annoyed. This was the third time in the past 30 minutes she had to explain what a link was. This was getting very old very quickly. She checked Toby's link again, it was still there and still blocked.

"Wait," Otto said slowly, "So this link is like a rubber band and if it stretches to far you die?"

"No, I give up," Julia snapped, "Come with me."

"Where are we going?" Nero asked, he was determined not to let Julia out of his sight.

"An old friend of mine," was the only thing Julia said as she headed to the Shroud bay.

**20 minutes later:Russia**

The shroud touched down and sent a signal to the computer below it. Julia sent the right code as well, she didn't want to end up like a pancake today. Suddenly the ground dropped away beneath them and they were falling. The shrouds engine's were dead. The only person who didn't seem to be panicking was Julia, instead she grabbed hold of a metal bar and steadied herself. As quickly as they had begun falling they stopped, everyone but Julia went flying.

Somehow everyone was in one piece when they made it down the exit ramp and into the building. A woman who looked to be about 17 with long blond hair was sitting on a crate laughing at them.

"You could have warned them you know." She said pointedly at Julia, who just shrugged.

"Forgot."

The woman rolled her eyes, jumped lightly off the crate and walked towards them.

"Hi, I'm Alice," The woman said. Now she was closer Otto could see the thin scar that crossed her face, it seemed to add to her beauty. "I can thank her for this," Alice pointed at Julia.

"You startled me," Julia pointed out.

Alice rolled her eyes, "Whether I did or did not sneak up on you is neither a here nor a there. What does matter is the fact that you only told me that Toby was missing an hour ago when he has been missing for at least an hour and a half, explain?"

A man who looked about the same age appeared behind Alice and hugged her waist.

"Hey Charlie," Julia. "Can I have the keys?"

The man seemed to be confused, "For what?"

"Это имело обыкновение быть Адом."

"Все еще" Charlie muttered darkly as he threw a set of keys at her.

Alice raised an eyebrow at them, "We have a rule about that topic, you know that Julia...now, who wants tea." Without waiting for an answer she started to head down the only corridor. As they were walking Alice chatted non-stop.

"Toby jokes, Alice makes rules," Julia muttered to Raven.

"What do you do?" Raven replied.

Julia just smiled and said quite simply, "Kill people."

Eventually they entered lit a brightly lit, warm room, Alice collapsed gracefully into a chair that was bolted to the ground.

"Your turn." was all she said.

"Wha..what?" Otto stuttered, confused.

"How did you meet Jay? Why do you guys have a link? Would be a good start."

Otto began from the beginning, with everyone else contributing a detail here and there. At some point Julia disappeared, very few people noticed though as she made no noise.

By the time they finished Otto was exhausted but he still wanted to know about the link.

Alice nodded, "Fair enough. The link is basically a string attaching one person to another. Julia and Toby's is the strongest ever recorded, we don't know why. If one of them dies the other would die because of the link would be broken or if they get a serious injury, for example Julia's eye."

Everyone stared at them confused.

"I don't think we were supposed to mention that..."

Alice shrugged, "Too late now, Julia is partly blind, didn't you know that?"


	4. Chapter 4

**Authors note whatsit: Some of you are probably going to think that the maturity levels shown by Alice and Charlie are too high for their age but do remember that none of the kids that trained with Julia were exactly normal. I can't tell you much more with out giving stuff away... Let's keep those comments rolling in. This is now dedicated to AlphaFive who has commented the most. Go AlphaFive!**

Everyone sat there in stunned silence.

"But she doesn't..." Otto trailed off. He had never seen Julia favour an eye, none of them had.

Alice smiled, "We don't know which eye it is either. Julia's never told us and she doesn't make it obvious..."

They sat there in silence for a few minutes more before Raven spoke.

"If you don't mind me asking," she was being polite for once, "How do you guys know each other?"

Alice leaned her arms on the table thinking.

"We met about 15 years ago, right?" she asked looking at Charlie. He nodded in agreement, "Bout that."

Both of them looked sad at the memory.

"Are you okay?" Nero asked, he looked concern.

"We're fine, some people we loved died that day."

Everyone knew that it was a lot more than that.

**15 years ago:**

Alice scowled at her Mother and muttered something in Russian which a two year old should not know. She had been stuck in this bunker for nearly two whole hours, this was way more boring than the practice drills they had done. The young woman tutted at her, even in this situation she still found time to tell her off.

"Alice, we do not have cause for that sort of language. I am aware that our situation is a little more chaotic than usual but I wish that you will keep you composure."

Her older brother Danny, only by 3 years though, was arguing with their Father. He wanted to help barricade the door but he was too small. Suddenly there was a commotion at the other secret entrance, within 5 seconds of the noise being noticed every single adult had some sort of weapon in hand. There was several sighs of relief as another beautiful young woman appeared in the narrow gap, she handed a small bundle through the hole before coming through herself. She was covered in blood and looked like she had been crying.

"Mi, they just, Mick." Alice's mother was already hugging the woman and muttering soothing words. Alice jumped down and ran over to the small bundle, sleeping. Of course he was sleeping, one of the most exciting things in their life was happening what else would he be doing? Poking the the bundle a few times there was a moan and a small boy unraveled himself sleepily.

"Go ways Ali," he muttered.

"Get up, Charles," Alice responded, "The most exciting thing of our life is happening! And you're sleeping through it?!"

"It's Charlie," he muttered using his links arm to pull himself up and looked around the room. Including them there was about 15 people in the room. He didn't want to know what happened to the other 50 or so people in the facility. He caught sight of the only other two working links here, Jasmine and Jacob, comforting each other in a corner.

It seemed like hours but it was probably only 20 or so minutes when the rescue team finally arrived. Leading them was none other than Dominika Mercer, 2 month old Julia skipping by her side.

"Domi, please tell me you didn't just bring your 2 month old daughter through that?" Alice's mother embraced the woman who scowled but allowed it.

Dominika sighed, "It was her choice. Anyway she proved to be a great help to the operation."

"I suppose you didn't think of her link?"

Dominika laughed, "He's waiting in the shroud."

Alice smiled shyly at Julia, who smiled back.

Once both the links had been put with the best fighters, small groups began moving heading slowly through the building to the shroud. Alice and Charlie had been put in Dominika's group along with both their Mother's and Alice's Father. Julia and Danny were also in the group of course. Being the last group to leave they knew that they would be in the most danger. It was estimated that over 100 hostiles had enetred the facility and only 56 had been counted as dead or unable to fight.

The other 44 caught up with them when they reached the last corridor before safety. 5 year old Danny was the first to go down. In the next 3 minutes 47 people died. The 4 survivors didn't say anything as they walked the rest of the way to the shroud and nobody asked.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey guys, please don't kill me. I know I've been a bad author but I have excuses, see *frantically waves long piece of paper around*. Basically I forgot where I was going with this, remembered and then got sick. I also went through the *I need to read more fanfiction and join more fandoms* faze. I also became an admin on not one but four Facebook pages. I'll do better, I'll even swear on my magic for you…So here's the next chapter. Oh, and guess who got a Beta! So, lots of thanks to Juniper Night!**

"We went directly to one of the Training Centers after that." Charlie finished the story softly. The room fell into another silence but this time it was of comradeship; everyone in the room had lost someone. It was Otto that broke the silence.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your parents."

Alice shrugged, "We were lucky, we had more time with our parents than most people."

Otto nodded, "There's just one thing I'm confused about. You said Julia was 2 months old?"

Charlie and Alice stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity, finally they seemed to agree on something and turned back to face the others. Charlie glanced at Alice again before beginning to speak, then he stopped as though he forgot what he was about to say.

"Lets go sit down first," he finally said, "It's a short story with a lot of questions."

Confused they followed him through more passageways. They passed by several other rooms and passages but didn't go down any of them. Eventually they reached a room that was set out like a large sitting room, it was covered with pillows and couches. Alice shrugged and muttered something under her breath. It sounded like "Note to self, don't let Charlie decorate again...ever." Charlie laughed and stuck her tongue out at him.

Collapsing onto one of the couches Charlie's face turned serious as he gestured for them to sit.

He took a deep breath and began.

"25 years ago scientists that were part of the Mercer family, owed them a favour or something began to do a series of experiments. They were trying to breed the perfect asassins from birth. 22 years ago Carmen was created. He died 6 months later. His body couldn't cope with the growth rate. They kept on trying, eventually they took out the physical growth rate altogether and concentrated on mental growth instead. They also designed muscles to form differently from other people. These muscles already knew how to fight and kill, it was just a matter of waking them up. So they designed a trip switch so to speak, it activated when we went through a traumatic event or was in mortal peril. Ours activated when we were 2 at the base when our parents were killed. Even though we already knew the moves we had still practice so that we could control ourselves so to speak. We were taken directly to the Training Centers after that," He paused to take a deep breath, "Julia's was activated when she was 23 days old when her house was attacked. Over the years they had still been trying to perfect the growth formula AND they decided to try it again with Julia. In 2 months she grew to be the size of a 5 year old with the mental capacity of a 16 year old. It slowed down after that." He hesitated and glanced at Alice who shrugged.

"What my link is trying to tell you is basically we were literally born to be assassins and It slowed down so much that in the past decade Julia has aged about 6 months. So yes, she is 15 years old but she actually looks her age for once."

Raven gasped in shock and Alice nodded. Otto stared at them confused.

"There is one assassin feared above all others, Otto, even BY Raven" Alice replied to his unspoken question, "Many believe that she is immortal because it appears that she never changes."

"What were," Laura began to ask, then stopped.

"The Training Centers?"

She nodded.

Alice though for a second, "They were alright as long as you didn't get into trouble or kill anyone you weren't supposed to." Alice glanced at Raven and Dimitri, "They weren't the Glasshouse," she said softly, "We always had the choice to leave."

"Did anyone?" someone asked.

Alice nodded slowly, "All of them are dead. Not killed by the Mercers but word got out about these kids with amazing martial art skills and you know, you either had to have them or destroy them."

Nero nodded, he had heard the rumours but never anything concrete to back it up.

"Of course, that wasn't the only way we died. Some of us snapped and went crazy, others killed themselves. Though those people it was only if their link died that they did that or else we were fine." Charlie said quickly.

"Why didn't you leave?" Wing asked.

They shrugged, "We didn't want to, we got to blow stuff up."

Alice explained, "We were the main "disposal and explosives" people. Basically we got access to a lot of explosives."

Charlie leaned forward, "Piece of advice, do not let 4 year olds near explosives."

They talked for a bit longer before they retired for the night. The next morning the got up to find Alice and Charlie already in the kitchen, Charlie sporting a rapidly turning red again bandage on his arm. They seemed to be arguing about whose fault it was.

"You should have seen it coming," Alice finally snapped and stood up. "Finally you're up, let's get food. She's not back yet." She added in response to their un-spoken question.

A few minutes later found them devouring the food, well most of them at least.

Suddenly Alice and Charlie looked up worried, "Jay's back," was the only explanation they gave as they dashed out of the kitchen.

They all chased after them worried as well. They found them in the hanger waiting as the door to a shroud opened and Julia walked down the ramp. Covered in blood.

"Liam is back," she managed before collapsing.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author Note thingy: Yes, I know I haven't updated in a while. This chapter isn't as long as it was originally because my not-usually-stupid computer broke and I had to re-type it...so sorry bout that. Please review oh awesome readers...and thanks to the awesome person Juniper Night for beta-ing this for me.**_

They could hear the girls arguing from the kitchen where they had retreated to after they had been chucked out of the medical bay by Alice and, surprisingly, Raven. Julia stormed into the kitchen and glared at Charlie.

"Tell them I'm fine," she snapped.

"Erm," Charlie looked between Julia and Alice, "She's fine?"

Alice glared at them, "No, she is not "fine", a couple of bruises is fine. Hell, a broken arm is fine. 9 broken ribs is not fine. A broken leg and an arm broke in 3 different places is not fine. 17 different knife wounds is not fine. 3 bullet wounds is not fine. At least 4 concussions that you remember is not fine!" Alice's voice had been increasing in volume and pitch.

By this point Raven had entered the kitchen and Nero looked at her for confirmation, which she gave.

"Wow, how are you still alive?" Otto asked finally.

Julia shrugged as she collapsed onto a chair, "I heal fast, always have."

"How can you have broken bones? I mean you were walking just fine, and you don't have a cast." Laura asked.

Julia raised an eyebrow, "I heal really fast?"

"What did you mean about Liam? I mean, he can't be alive, can he?" Charlie asked, he looked worried.

Julia nodded slowly, "It was him. He had the same scar." Then she groaned and leant back against the chair. "I haven't told Draco yet."

Charlie laughed, and Alice winced.

"Draco?"

"Julia Bellatrix Mercer," a voice yelled as a teenager with the most amazing silver eyes stormed into the room, "Why did you not inform me if the fact that my boyfriend is missing?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Sorry Guys/ettes but I'm not going to be able to update for about a month as I am being banned from the internet unless it is for school (I already tried the "it's for English excuse"). Turns my Mum thinks I've been reading "too much" fanfiction lately. I know I haven't updated in ages. Sadly life had been a pain lately. Good news my Grandmother has finally arrived from Scotland to live! So I've not being allowed near a computer as my Uncle "escorted" her over as it's a long flight. I have spent way too much time in the car lately as we just had to show them this place or go somewhere else. I've not even been able to read the stories I have on alert, sorry AlphaFive, I shall get there. I have about 20 alerts in my inbox screaming read me! Read me! Which I can't do. Now that I've rambled I'll just go now and let you have fun. **


End file.
